Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 161: Pulse by Pulse [Start of Book 4]

Circe Milview

My mind arced high into the sky as my newly acquired emblem carried me like a leaf in the breeze. I felt pain immediately as I activated my spellform, but I couldn't let myself falter.

"Hold it, Circe," a voice far below said. Near where my limp body rested, my stern teacher continued to bark instructions. "The moment you allow your concentration to snap, it is over!"

I gnashed my metaphorical teeth as I strained against the pain. But Professor Entrun was right. As head of the sentry department in Khaernian Academy, he had decades of experience training sentries. A few of his students had even achieved regalias.

They had what it took, I thought, straining. I do, too!

"Switch to observing wind attribute mana," the stern man barked. "And hold for ten seconds!"

I felt something in my core ache as I acceded his request, narrowing my sight. I'd acquired my emblem barely a week ago through mastery and I'd already been rung through with its use.

Green, flowing particles of wind mana slowly popped into existence. They swirled about in an almost playful way, keeping more to the sky than the other attributes I'd been pushed to sense.

But too early, I felt as my mind receded back into my body.

Damnit, I cursed, feeling the backlash of using my spell already. My vision swam as Professor Entrun suddenly had two heads, both speaking words that seemed a bit too distant.

"Too soon, Milview!" he snapped, his thin training rod cracking to the side. "You must hold it. A sentry's greatest weapon is their mind. So you will hone it over and over until you weep blood and you shit the same!"

Part of me that wasn't entirely disoriented wondered how use of an emblem could make me shit blood, but from the menacing way my professor levered his training rod, I decided not to ask.

"I–" I swallowed. "I need a moment. Please."

"You will get no rest until you complete your ten seconds!" Entrun insisted. His slicked-back gray hair reflected the early summer sun above us. "Again!"

I groaned, blinking until there was only one of my professor before I attempted to use True Sense again. I felt my mana reserves creak as I forced my mind from my body once more, rising into the air.

"Good," Entrun said. "Now you will try something else. Watch for fire mana! Ten seconds!"

I felt my body groan as I shifted my focus. Fire mana sparked in my vision, the deep reds flaring in the sky and across Cardigan. Ten, nine, eight...

This is easier to maintain, I thought with a hint of surprise. Why?

For some reason, I felt that the fire mana was easier to understand. The flares and retreats of each particle made a sort of instinctive sense. I looked around, doing a sweep of the city. Six, five, four...

I looked down, inspecting the nearby walls around the Khaernian Training Pavilion. Three, two...

And locked eyes with a hooded figure. Their burning orange pupils seared my metaphysical mind, forcing me to flinch back. The amount of fire mana around them was utterly absurd, to the point it pressed against the inside of my skull. I felt that aura seep into my nostrils, pressing up and up as it buckled my brain.

I gasped as True Sense was forcibly ended, the overload in my senses causing near-immediate backlash. I leaned forward, vomiting onto the ground as my core heaved.

"You were close, Milview," Entrun allowed. "But you still failed." He seemed to be waiting for me to speak.

"Saw... saw someone. Outside the nearby walls," I croaked, trying to blink away that searing gaze that seemed stamped over my vision. "They had a lot of mana. Too much. Hurt to look at."